- Verizon’s CEO Hans Vestberg ranks his mood from one to 10 every day to get into the right mindset for work.
- “If you want to lead other people, you need to start with yourself,” Vestberg said at a Fast Company event.
- He also drew up a “boss contract” outlining five goals he wanted to achieve when he joined Verizon.
Verizon’s CEO revealed that he adopted an unusual strategy to stay at the top of his game at work, including tracking his daily mood in a spreadsheet for over a decade.
Hans Vestberg spoke about how he maintains a strong leadership style at Fast Company’s Innovation Festival in New York last week during an onstage discussion with Mansueto Ventures CEO Stephanie Mehta.
“If you want to lead other people, you need to start with yourself,” he said, per Fast Company, explaining that during his morning routine he ranks his state of mind on the previous day from one to 10 to get into the “right mood and energy,” for the coming day.
This is what each score means, per CNBC:
- One to two – This means he wasn’t in the right headspace to work with other people and should “stay in his office,” and work alone the coming day.
- Three to seven – This is the ideal score and “usually when I’m best,” because he was “energized” and productive.
- Eight to 10 – A score above eight means he has “so much energy that people get tired of me,” so he could end up tiring out colleagues rather than energizing them.
The 58-year-old incorporated this ritual into his morning routine in 2009 when he became CEO of Ericsson and has been practising it “every day,” since, even tracking the score in a spreadsheet across that time.
When he was appointed Verizon's CEO in 2018 he tracked how well he was spending his time at work every day, sharing the data with other executives and encouraging them to do the same.
Having this religious ranking system in his daily routine helps to "bring out the strength in my leadership," he said, according to Fortune.
Vestberg also created a "boss contract" when he first started at Verizon, outlining five goals he wanted to accomplish, which he shared in a white paper with the company's board of directors.
The CEO takes a unique approach to leadership and shared a trove of information about how he keeps his employees happy at the festival.
He mentioned that he has a list of the 30 most important people at Verizon and outside of it, who he calls once a week to get "100%" from his staff and "break down the barrier" between himself and colleagues, per CNBC.